I'd Like To Use a Lifeline Please

Knitting lace requires faith. While forging forward, the work looks like a blob of yarn and funky stitches. Blocking the piece will reveal the negative spaces and beauty of lace.

When knitting, it's important for me to be able to look at a stitch and emerging pattern to see where I've been, and where I'm going. This ability is referred to as reading the knitting. Once a pattern is established, I should be able to tell if I'm on a right side, or wrong side row, or what the next stitch should be. The rows below supposedly tell me all of that information. Even though I thought I was a good reader, apparently, I'm not so great at reading my knitting.

When I first began to knit in earnest (something other than garter stitch scarves), I elected to knit lace. I joined a knit along (KAL) and jumped into it with all the enthusiasm I could muster. This was also the first time I tried knitting with a chart. It seemed so simple, just another variation on knit and purl stitches with a yarn over here and there. Simple, it was not. In the first place, I had to learn to use symbols in place of written words for instruction. Additionally, charts are read left to right and from the bottom to the top-this was a whole new language to me. In the second place, knitting lace involves creating negative spaces. For every stitch that creates this negative space or hole, there is a corresponding stitch taken away, usually ending a row with the same amount of stitches that there were at the start. How the knitter takes a stitch away is known as a decrease, and can be left leaning, right leaning or centered. Combined with the yarn overs, these stitches create a lace pattern. With the certain knowledge that I was way over my head and drowning, I restarted that project (Pink Lemon Twist's Mystery Shawl) over and over, choosing to rip out every single stitch every time I made a mistake. I was just so confused as to how I should fix dropped or forgotten stitches. Yarn overs preceding a purl stitch were particularly troublesome. I don't know why it took forever to learn to bring the yarn over to the front of the work before I purled, but it did. I'm embarrassed to tell you how many times I restarted Mystery Shawl 3. In microbiogy, we'd say TNTC (too numerous to count). Completely frustrated, I started reading the message boards to glean the insights of more experienced knitters. Surely, I couldn't be the only person with issues.

On the boards, I learned the importance of using a lifeline. A knitter's lucky charm, the lifeline allows me to rip out my stitches down to the line (a piece of contrasting yarn, or dental floss if I'm knitting with lace weight yarn). Some knitters don't need a lifeline and are quite capable of seeing which stitch goes where-all the way down a knitted piece. Either I lack the experience of these fiber artists, or I just can't see things the way they do. Subsequently, I use a lifeline. I always place my lifelines through the stitches of a wrong side row, in this case, a purled row, taking care on the next row, not to knit the lifeline into the fabric-it needs to be left alone. On this particular project, I place the line at the end of the last row of the 4 row pattern. This way, if I have to rip it out because of a mistake, I know I can rip to the end of a 4th row, pick up the stitches and restart at row 1 of the pattern. I'll place my lifelines every 3 or 4 pattern repeats so if I do encounter a problem with my stitches, I'm ripping only a little bit out, not an entire piece. Wisely, I also leave more than one lifeline in- just in case one comes out. Even if I can't be taught to read right, I can be taught tricks to compensate.

Just like my inability to accurately read my knitting, I'm having a hard time reading the verbal and non-verbal messages I'm receiving about my job. I'm staying put for now, and I'm trying really hard to be as optimistic about how things will shake out with my department as I am about how the lace will block. Wish I had a lifeline for this decision.